North Carolina State University graduate student Joshua Katz was looking for an idea for his end-of-year statistics project  when he came across interesting linguistics data from Dr. Bert Vaux of Cambridge University. Vaux had collected data on regional dialects in the U.S. via a 120-question survey that asked about everything from the pronunciation of “caught” to whether “y’all” is preferred over “you.” Then he had mapped that data, to indicate where particular dialect differences were more prevalent.   Katz created a statistical algorithm that weighted the responses around a particular location. The approach let Katz create colorful maps that show how regional dialects are spread across the country. Read more …